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Welcome back to another exploration of how the British pound is doing on the currency markets. We’re about to see whether the pound did well – or not – on the currency converter between the 14th and 18th of February, so let’s delay no longer.

An overview of the currency markets for February 14th – February 18th 2011

We had a mediocre week against the US dollar last time, finishing on 1.5991 as a result. But this week would be better, as we found out by upping things to 1.6000 as soon as Monday was over. We got better and better as the week went on as well, eventually finishing on 1.6232.

But could we do just as well against the Euro? We improved slightly over the previous week, ending that one on 1.1824. The first couple of days went well this time too, as we increased the exchange rate to 1.1940 by Tuesday evening. We then fell back to 1.1877 before ending the week on a better rate of 1.1911.

Our third stop is the Hong Kong dollar, where we finished on 12.464 last time around. Once again we had steady improvements over the first couple of days, going up to 12.570 in the process. Even a momentary dip on Wednesday night didn’t spoil the overall outcome, and eventually we finished up on 12.636 as the week came to an end.

So far then the British pound hadn’t had a bad week. But could it keep it up, and do just as well against the New Zealand dollar and Australian dollar? Let’s tackle the New Zealand dollar first, which last time had seen the pound finish the week on 2.1129.

We had a marginal improvement on Monday to 2.1186, but then we saw a major leap up to 2.1402 the following day. That was followed by a drop back to 2.1298 again. In a see saw week we finally saw the pound end on 2.1311 – much better than when it had started.

Finally the Aussie dollar saw the pound close out the previous week on 1.6015. We dipped down below 1.60 the following day before regaining some strength and finishing Tuesday night on 1.6122. We couldn’t quite manage to hang onto that level though, and by the time the week was over the British pound finished on 1.6055.

Notable events in the world of currency

The British pound creeps up against the Canadian dollar

There was a small victory last week as the pound crept up from 1.5920 to 1.5959 from start to finish.

But there wasn’t such good news against the Swiss franc

This wasn’t the result we had been hoping for, as the pound fell back from 1.5564 to 1.5453 over the course of the week.

Another fall against the Chinese currency

There wasn’t very good news here either, as the pound fell from 10.543 to 10.664 against the Chinese currency last week.

We can see what prompted the British pound to struggle partway through the week simply by looking at some of the news stories that were around at that time. This one from Reuters explains what happened, and also indicates that the currency was able to regain its footing somewhat after the events took place.

So there we have it for another week, and to be honest it was a fairly good week all in all for the British pound. It could have been bad all round but even though it lost some ground during the middle of the week, it soon regained its footing and was able to improve very quickly.

We can but hope that the pattern will continue over the coming weeks, as the British pound tries to improve its standing so that it can successfully gain better exchange rates against the main five currencies above. Needless to say we shall be here to tell you what happens.

Comment

So it was quite a good week for the pound then all in all. It’s nice to get a good week but it always seems to be followed by a bad one, doesn’t it? Hopefully this time we’ll see some prolonged good results instead of just one nice one in the middle of a sea of bad ones! It’s good to see some good news for a change though, especially where these major currencies are concerned.